In a contest between a 1970 Ford Maverick and an adult bull bison – Bet it all on the buffalo. I can tell you from the perspective of sitting inside that 1970 Ford Maverick that this is not a contest. They both weigh approximately 2000 pounds. The maverick stands about 53” tall (or 4 ½ feet). The Bull tops out between 72” to 78” (or 6 to 6 ½ feet tall). I would have said 8’ if you had asked me at the time but that was only because from a sitting position inside the car, the darn thing seemed as big as Godzilla. I’m pretty sure we all held our breath as he walked out into the road in front of our car. The giant swiveled his head and looked at the four of us with a gaze that seemed to say “I’ll move when I’m good and ready, don’t piss me off and I won’t smash your car into tin cans”. I was 10 years old and that buffalo was one of the coolest and scariest animals I’d ever seen.

It was one of many memorable moments from one of those grueling (but fun) family summer vacation car trips that my generation remembers so well. I don’t think many families take these kinds of vacations anymore, where the kids are packed into a car and you just set out to see America. Driving hundreds of miles between destinations with no apparent agenda (at least one Dad would ever tell us), cooking on a Coleman stove, camping in a tent, and eating Spam seem to be by-gone relics of family travel. But maybe this is where my affinity for agenda free travel was born.

In 1975, my Dad, my younger brother Ted, my older sister Kathy, and I set off from Columbus, Ohio on one of these types of trips. I was 10. We were taking my Dad’s 1970 hideous orange standard drive Ford Maverick. No air-conditioning. No FM radio. Black vinyl seats that became the temperature of molten lava after an afternoon in the sun. I don’t think my dad had any particular itinerary other than he wanted to drive into Canada and around Lake Superior and then go to Iowa to visit our Grandma Lois. Everything else was going to be the whim of the moment and a matter of what struck his fancy when looking at the map in the morning – and how far he and my sister could drive without tiring.

First up was about a 500 mile leg to Mackinac Island and crossing the amazing Mackinac Bridge. At the time it was one of the longest bridges in the world. We then found a campsite somewhere in Ontario past Sault St. Marie with its large system of locks (pictured below). These locks enable ship travel between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. The entire area is beautiful.

Driving such distances in a small car with kids ranging in age from 17 to 6 presents its own challenges, especially in an era before electronic games, music, and video – not even an FM radio. But we passed the time with reading, watching the countryside roll by, the famous “Yes and No” invisible ink game and quiz books, trying to keep track of license plates from the different States (parked cars don’t count), and “20 Questions”. Of course annoying your little brother is always a spectacular way to pass the time – at least until your dad blows his lid.

We next traveled around Lake Superior to Thunder Bay, Ontario where we visited Kakabeka Falls briefly and then went on into northern Minnesota to camp. I don’t remember exactly where that was, but that’s because the gigantic swarm of mosquitoes that descended upon us as we set up our tent made me forget everything but escape. It was like something out of the movie African Queen. There were not only millions of them, but they came after us relentlessly, like a clan of starved vampires. They drove us into the tent, without any dinner, where we remained until morning. The mosquitoes filled every screened window and door-flap and nearly drove us insane with the constant buzz. It was bizarre. I’ve never seen anything like it since.

Off again! We were headed for a stay in Minneapolis to catch a baseball game. That was one of the other great things about those car road trip vacations. My dad loved baseball and would take us to a game if we were going to be near a stadium he had never visited and the team had a home stand. The Twins were at home so we went. I don’t remember who won or who the Twins played. That’s because I was too excited about getting a ball fouled off by the Hall of Famer Rod Carew who in 1975 was probably the best hitter in baseball. My brother was quite jealous. For years that ball was my most prized possession.

On to Iowa and grandmother’s house we go. A couple of the things I do remember during this extensive car trek was listening to Paul Harvey on the radio and his captivating “and now for the rest of the story” stories and the fact that Glen Campbell’s song “Rhinestone Cowboy” was a huge crossover hit that summer. It seemed like we must have heard that song 100 times over those few weeks. Good thing it was a pretty good song. I still know the lyrics.

Well the visit to my Grandma was fairly typical of any family gathering, although I did manage to hit a financial bonanza for a 10 year old. One night we drove to some tiny little town in South Dakota for Bingo. My grandmother was a Bingo fanatic. She would play 15-20 cards at a time – chain smoking away the whole time. Nobody cared about smoking around kids in the 70’s. She bought each of us 4 cards to play and wouldn’t you know it I won the “Blackout” game where you have to be the first to get every number on your card. I was so excited I yelled “Blackout” instead of Bingo. The winnings were $150. For a 10 year old in 1975 that might as well have been a million bucks. I thought my brother was going to collapse in jealousy. First the baseball, now a fortune. Life seemed very unfair to him. Well, he need not have worried too much – my dad only let me keep $20 and made me put the rest in the bank. Funny thing is I still have an account at that local Farmers State Bank in Hawarden, Iowa – started with that Bingo money. There’s not much in it today and I’m not sure why I keep it – nostalgia I guess. The other nights in Iowa were normally filled with playing cards – Fan tan (a betting game we played with my grandma’s jars of pennies) and Mary Widow were family favorites. Back before cable TV and video games families seemed to play interactive games with one another. I loved it, although we got NO mercy from Grandma when it came to betting games. She had no reservations about taking pennies from her grand-kids!

After several days in Hawarden we took to the road once again. It seems we just had to go to the internationally known Wall Drug – the famous store in Wall, South Dakota. Anyone who has travelled by car anywhere west of the Mississippi has probably come across the Wall Drug signs on the side of the road stating how far it is to the store. The signs are everywhere. But frankly the store itself, while enormous, is a bit disappointing. A huge tourist trap. But it’s like a train wreck – you just have to go/watch.

One other event of note happened in South Dakota on the way to the Badlands. My brother and I had made “forts” in the back seat by stringing up blankets. At some point we needed some gas and a restroom break so we stopped at a service station along a fairly isolated stretch of highway. My dad preferred the smaller highways – the scenic routes. It was one of those stations where you had to get the restroom key from an attendant as the toilets were out on the side of the building and usually smelled like they hadn’t been cleaned in a decade. I went and did my business and returned the key only to find the car (and my brother, Dad, and sister) GONE! I wasn’t sure what to think and alternated between worry and anger, but after 20-25 minutes I began to get scared. They really had left me! Little did I know they had thought I was back under my “fort” in the backseat and took off down the road. It wasn’t until my brother went to hit me (as brothers do) that they discovered my absence. Well they turned around and found me by the side of the road and when I saw them laughing, I was certain in my 10 year old head they had done it on purpose! What a**holes! I gave the all-mighty silent treatment as long as I could to show my displeasure – which meant I probably pouted for an hour or so. My brother and sister still laugh at my expense at that memory. I do too – NOW.

The Badlands was our next destination and they are amazing. They look like they are the landscape of another planet. In my youthful ignorance I foolishly went and kicked the side of one formation thinking it was sand. It’s not! Although my sore foot was better than my brother’s whole body – He jumped on the side of the one I was kicking. I couldn’t help but wonder what could possibly live in those barren hills, but it looked like the perfect hideaway for outlaws or renegades to my 10 year old brain. It was very exciting. On the way out of the Badlands National Park is when we across the extraordinarily large Bull Bison I mentioned at the start of this article. We still laugh about how damn huge that thing was. I can’t imagine what a herd of a million of these magnificent beasts must have looked like. One of the largest recorded herds was from 1871. The recorded account described a herd of over 4 million buffalo that was 50 miles long and 25 miles wide!

We made our next stop at the Mount Rushmore monument with the carved faces of President’s Lincoln, Roosevelt, Washington, and Jefferson. While I thought it was inspiring and the history of how it was made was interesting, I was much more interested in getting to the nearby Custer Battlefield as it was called then (now more appropriately called the Little Bighorn Battlefield).

Since I loved the history of the plains Indians, especially the Sioux Indians, I found that part of the trip very memorable. What 10 year old wouldn’t be excited by a great Indian battle? We walked along the exact fields where Custer and his command were wiped out by the Sioux and Cheyenne led by the great Sioux leader Crazy Horse. Today the Sioux nation is carving a monument many times the size of Mount Rushmore as tribute to Crazy Horse which will be the world’s largest monument if and when it is completed. I remain fascinated by this man to this day and have read several biographies about him. But back in 1975 it was the best part of the trip for me to be walking on such famous ground.

It started a true love affair for me with the western United States. The sky seems endless. The beauty and grandeur is stunning. The history is fascinating.

All in all that summer the four of us traveled almost 5000 miles in that small Ford – each day picking out some place within a few hundred miles that we could go see and camp nearby. I loved seeing new places as a child. I love going to new places still today. Some of the most amazing things can be found right in your own home country. World travel is wonderful, but local and regional travel can be adventures just as satisfying. I would recommend to anyone wanting to see western United States to take a car trip (although maybe one with a better radio and some air-conditioning) and let your imagination and curiosity lead you in finding your own wonders. Leave the electronics at home.

My grandfather had decided against my mom keeping that puppy she had found. But I just don’t understand why he carried out his decision with such cruelty and barbarity. I never knew my grandfather. He was dead before I was born. From what little my mom told me about him, I didn’t miss much. She didn’t think too highly of two other powerful entities of her childhood either – a zealously religious mother and the Catholic Church. Each had a unique way of making a small female child feel worthless and dirty. And both left their own particular psychic scars on my mom.

The cruelty my mom experienced as a child from priests, nuns, and her parents made her doubt a loving God. Because the people who were the face of religion were cruel and hypocritical, she turned her heart from God. And sometimes that fact breaks mine, because my mom had such a fun, generous, warm, kind, and endlessly loving heart. But because she was introduced to God from a paternalistic and rigid Church and from parents with some decidedly warped conceptions of love, her path led her away from God.

It is ironic perhaps then that the fairly recent return of God in my life wouldn’t have happened without the persistent and unwavering effort and love of my mother. I had lost Him from my life for dozens of years, buried Him beneath the darkness and spiritual bankruptcy of alcoholism and addiction. And without my mom pressing me repeatedly to get help, I may still be lost to my friends, my family, and to God. I wish she could have seen the hand of God in my recovery and in her love for all of her children. But our introductions to God definitely forever colored our relationships with Him.

Her introduction was forever associated with pain, guilt, fear, and anger. I always associated my introduction with wonder, awe, beauty, and connectedness.

I remember vividly the day I first felt with certainty a belief in a power greater and more beautiful than myself – the first day I really believed there was a God. I was about 12 years old and hiking the Glacier National Park Gunsight Pass Trail in Montana.

My dad, my brother and I were on the second day of a two day hike. The previous day we had endured a tough 7-8 mile hike up to Sperry Chalet with an ascent of about 3300 feet. It took about 6-7 hours and I was gratefully relieved that my Dad had made reservations in the Chalet and we didn’t have to set up a camp and tent. That first day’s hike had been beautiful of course, but it had been harder to enjoy the scenery considering the climb was so tiring. The second day we would be hiking further up the mountain and past the glacially fed Lake Ellen Wilson and then on to Logan Pass. After crossing the Continental Divide, the trail would become easier as the final 10 miles or so were mostly downhill through the scenic St. Marys River Valley and ending at the Going-to-the Sun Highway.

I loved being out there. It was peaceful. I felt so alive. The air was fresh, clear and crisp like only it can be in the summer in the Rocky Mountains. The sun was sparklingly bright. We were nearly on top of the world and the view was amazing. I tended to walk faster than either my Dad or my brother who was 4 years younger than I and often purposefully walked far ahead out of sight of anyone. Even at that age, I loved that feeling of solitude walking alone in the immense and wild mountains of Montana. But I also felt connected to the world in a way that a young boy had no words for. And while I knew the danger of Grizzly bears in the area and my Dad would have killed me had he found out, I would remove the bear bells from my boots as soon as I got out of sight – I wanted to experience those walks without any artificial sounds.

So I was alone climbing up past Lake Ellen Wilson. The lake is fed by nearby glaciers and has an unbelievable deep aqua blue color that only glacial lakes have. I shared the trail with a family of mountain goats and the occasional marmot. The mountain peaks rose in their grandeur all around the lake. I got to the pass and the official point on top of the world. I looked east and saw numerous waterfalls coming down the mountains leading down to the valley below. Behind me was that glorious glacial aqua lake. Snowdrifts remained even in August and in some places crossed the trail. I felt miniscule and insignificant and grand and unconquered at the same time. I suddenly felt the presence of God. That something this amazing and beautiful was not possible by chance. That the feelings I was having of awe and inspiration were meaningful and important to admit if only to myself. I walked most of the rest of that day in silence admiring the natural beauty I felt God was presenting just for me.

While that young boy soon stopped letting God into his heart like he had that day – when it came time to open up again, it was possible because my introduction had been so memorable and wondrous. The God that said hello to me in Montana was a loving God, the creator of the natural wonders along the Gunsight Pass Trail. A God who allowed me to see what was possible.

As I remember my mom this Mother’s Day, I am grateful for her love for me – a love that allowed me to be introduced to God again. I hope she’s somewhere beautiful like Logan Pass surrounded by majestic peaks, glacial lakes, roaring waterfalls, and sunlight. I hope she has been introduced to my God, not the God of a father that would kill his child’s puppy.

For a libertarian reading the news on a daily basis can be a nightmare. It can be depressing. And the news can leave me wondering how I can possibly express my outrage at the increasing number of abuses to our constitutional rights meted out by our own government. Acts such as: the passage of the NDAA which allows the arrest and indefinite detention of American citizens and denies them the right to an attorney; the permitting of strips searches of anyone arrested – even for traffic violations; the indignity and injustice of the TSA searching 4 year olds and threatening the child’s mother; or making protesting government officials an offense punishable by 10 years in prison are just recent examples of the slide to totalitarianism. I can often barely recognize that this is the same country I grew up in as a child. Just within the last year or so we have seen a president claim the authority to kill American citizens without due process or judicial review. I have read about school children as young as six years old being arrested by police and criminally charged for actions that a generation ago would mandate at most a trip to the principal and afterschool detention. This week begins the trials of accused terrorists in Guantanamo that resemble the kinds of judicial systems we mocked in Soviet Russia. It is wearisome.

So today I decided I wanted to think and write about something much more pleasant. I needed a break from the bad. Today I intend to intentionally turn away from unpleasant news and remember that good still exists in the world. I will think about good things.

Potato chip cookies and jelly beans. Of all the treats offered by Mrs. Wheeler those were by far my favorites.

Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler were an elderly and childless couple. They lived quietly in a smaller house in the middle of a neighborhood on Stanwood Road that was jam-packed with children. We had 6 kids in our house. The Acton family had 5. The Knolls family, 3. The Gugle family another 5. The Worch family and several others lived nearby as well. Unlike many of the other elderly people in our neighborhood who considered us kids pests, all children were welcome at the Wheelers and treated as favored guests.

I, and every one of the kids on Stanwood Road, knew that they could just walk over to the Wheeler’s, knock on the door, and get a handful of jelly beans. And every Christmas each one of us would be given a full jar of jelly beans, which was a much better present than some tube socks which it seems my mother always thought I needed more of.

If I was particularly lucky, I would visit on a day Mrs. Wheeler just baked some cookies. My favorite kind was her potato chip cookies. Yes, potato chip cookies. Delicious. I’ve not had one in over 30 years, but I still remember them. Those wonders were a Mrs. Wheeler original and served up with a smile and a generous dose of kindness rare to find these days. When Mr. Wheeler was there he would often pull his thumb “off” in his charming way and ask if we were “Jimmy Jones” as we gobbled our jelly beans and cookies. I still don’t know who the heck Jimmy Jones is. And although they didn’t own one, they always kept dog treats for our dogs when we brought them along. They would ask us about school and life and our family.

The Wheelers were very popular with the neighborhood children.

They were kind. They were generous. They made each child in our neighborhood feel wanted and special. We knew that no matter how bad things seemed, no matter how crowded our home was, how nasty a sibling was being, how awful school was that day – a smile and a handful of jelly beans were just a short walk away. They made us happy.

And maybe it is just my poor memory, but the Wheelers always seemed happy too. I don’t ever remember being turned away or either of them having anything but genuine smiles and kind words – and jelly beans and cookies.

I think that’s a lesson from the Wheeler’s that I need to remember more often. That if I am kind, giving and friendly I not only make someone else happy, but I become happy. The Wheelers were the embodiment of the notion that happiness is not something we can attain, but that it is a way of living. But a handful of jelly beans certainly brings me some happy memories.